Magic: New World Order
by ShadowShifter
Summary: There is a legend, that the Sorceress Queen will rise up and bring the world to its knees. Five chosen ones from the five colours of Magic are destined to stop her. So it was written...but it seems something is slightly amiss
1. Midnight in the Garden

It was midnight.   
  
    The halls of the academy were normally quiet at this time, save for the studious or the insomniac that aimlessly wandered the silent corridors or carried out further study and research. Tonight, however, felt different. The normal, tranquil air usually permeating the repossessed castle had taken on a distinctly eerie feel. The nightwalkers scurried fearfully in pairs, uncertain about the strange atmosphere but quite wisely not casting their concern aside as foolishness as many of the Mundanes were doing.
    Deep in the labyrinthian halls, tucked away in a corner of one of the extensive libraries, Q'it Ikuz glanced up unconcernedly from the grimoire he had until then been engrossed in. The faint blue glow of the runic symbols emanating off the page faintly illuminated his soft, almost white skin. "About time," he said, a small smirk tugging up one corner of his thin lipped mouth.
  
  
It was midnight.   
  
    The sky was a dark, velvety blue-purple, almost but not quite black. Much like the night shaded robes of her royal spoilt brat highness Princess Sianha. This rather large night robe was not setting off any burnished golden hair or sparkling baby blue eyes, however. They just provided a beautiful backdrop for the cold sparkle of the myriad of stars. And The Moon.
    No one in their right mind would have been out at this time of night. Especially not tonight. Especially not tonight at midnight. Anyone - or anything - who did happen to be out at this time of night on this particular night, if they had chanced to look up at a particular moment, would have seen silhouetted against the moon a small, lithe, human shaped figure springing neatly, agiley from roof to roof, the shadowy, slender Earthbound body standing out in stark contrast against the ponderous, round, shining Heavenly one.
    With the grace of one with many years of practice, the shadow slid cleanly to a soundless halt on the very slightly curved rooftop. Tiyane loved the roofs of these rich houses, curved enough to prevent water from collecting on it, flat enough so a skilled thief could easily keep footing even in the most treacherous weather. There was nothing treacherous about the weather on this night. It was as clear as clear could possibly get.
    There was a slight crackling in the air. There was a slight crackling in the air. One of her ears flicked towards it. Otherwise unperturbed, she turned her head, her hand imperceptibily creeping to rest on the handle of the small crossbow hanging from her belt.
    "About time," a disembodied voice said. She blinked, and spied the tall, platinum headed young man decked in blue and black robes, looking quite comfortable behind a very good sized mahogany table piled high with books. One lay open before him, the source of a faint blue light that cast the pale reflections of runes on his face.
    "Bad moon," the girl commented, pointing skyward for emphasis.
    The platinum haired man smiled, resting his chin on one hand. "I am aware of it."
    Tiyane straightened, her hand not leaving the handle of her crossbow, and turned to fully face the man. "Should we be worried?" By her tone it sounded like she wouldn't be worried even if such a time came around that she should be.
    The man frowned in response. "There isn't a mage alive who could cast a bad moon when it's not full."
    "Heh," a cold smile passed across Tiyane's features, "looks like there might be."
  
  
It was a little past midnight.   
  
    J'raal smirked mirthlessly at the unsmiling moon. Ocasionally the air around him crackled with remnants of energy, some of it even sparking a little bit. Automatically the back of his hand brushed across his brow to wipe away sweat that wasn't there. Old habits died hard. Apparently. His smile widened into a pained grimace. Agony shot through his limp muscles as he struggled to raise his staff into an upright position. It was amazing how the lightweight, well constructed bone staff felt as heavy and unwieldy as a makeshift cudgel in his current situation.
    His body screamed in protest as he hauled what weight he had to his unsteady feet, leaning very heavily on the staff. With something best described as bored annoyance, he brushed stray strands of his ebony hair over his shoulder, where it blended with his thick, dark ponytail, dangling limply down the middle of his back. Under normal circumstances he would have been asleep for quite a few days at best, dead somewhere in the middle ground and completely insane at worst.
    He hadn't been in normal circumstances for a while.
  
  
    The heavy scent of musk overwhelmed the clean, crisp scent of the night air, accompanied shortly afterwards by the gentle clink of metal on metal. Not much later he could hear the rustle of fine silk. Wearily, J'raal raised his head. Even that simple movement was a monumental effort. Laenor smiled coldly at him, her dark purple lips a stark contrast to her milky skin.
    "You have done well." Her voice was low and throaty, sultry and threatening. J'raal, lacking the energy to do anything else, elected to remain motionless where he was, concentrating on regaining his strength. She stepped closer, the scent of her coming very close to overpowering his senses and knocking him over. J'raal astutely kept his mind on maintaining his wavering balance.
    Her cold, ivory fingers caressed his cheek lightly. He nearly lost his footing as a jolt of electricity passed between them, sending a shudder through his wracked body.
    "Poor J'raal," her voice was lighter, mocking, "you must be exhausted after your efforts. You deserve a rest." She raised a hand, the light silken sleeve sliding gracefully back to reveal an elegant, slender arm. Tracing patterns in the air, she murmured under her breath. A dark mist tainted the air just off Laenor's fingertips. Gradually raising her arm in a vertical upward motion, she sent the mist upwards. As it rose it billowed and spread, slowly assuming the dark, winged form of a dragon. The cloud solidified into the beast as it alighted surprisingly lightly on the cliff they stood on, dipping a shoulder to allow them to ascend.
    Laenor easily vaulted onto the creature's back. J'raal did not move, not even raising his head to follow Laenor's movement. Her laugh had a cruel ring to it.
    "Too tired even for this, J'raal?"
    The dragon reached out. J'raal's exhausted body reflexively shifted his weight backwards, away from the deadly claws of the beast. They closed around him before he could fall backwards. The dragon beat the air with its wings, launching itself off the cliff, and headed in the direction of the moon.


	2. Trigger

    "You're slipping in your old age." The voice was dry, cracked, mildly sarcastic and sounded like it had seen more than its fair share of years.
    "Yeah and you can talk," Tiyane smiled, padding soundlessly across the semi-dark room. "It's not like it's a habit or anything anyway," she added, playfully poking her tongue out at the Guildmaster.
    The wizened old man, so heavily creased and wrinkled that he might easily be mistaken for some kind of tree if he hadn't been so small, grinned toothily. The crevasse that served as his mouth widened significantly, his black diamond eyes glittered. "True. Twice in two years isn't bad. Just don't make it a habit," he winked. He may for all intents and purposes have been a treefolk - or perhaps shrubfolk might be more appropriate for his somewhat less-than-average height - as far as Tiyane was concerned, others who had known him longer all reckoned that he hadn't changed since the first time they'd met him.
    She trotted soundlessly up to the highly polished wooden table and dropped comfortably to her knees, tail curling around her, unhooking the bag from her belt at the same time. Tiyane emptied the contents of the bag onto the table. Metal clinked on wood accompanied by the bright sparkle of moonlight on precious metal. The old guy delicately ran gnarled, claw-like hands over the treasures before him. Tiyane watched his face carefully, watching for the glimmer of approval in his bottomless eyes.
  
  
    A rotund object of the egg-shaped persuasion made a clanging noise as it connected with the wooden floorboards, skittered rapidly across the floor and rebounded lightly off a boot in its path, rotating on the spot until it slowed to a halt. The burly, swarthy pirate type owner of the boot glanced down unconcernedly. He blinked, his weatherbeaten brow furrowing in mild confusion.
    Recognition dawned.
  
  
Smoke poured out of the object with an ominous hissing.
  
  
    The old guy looked up suddenly without seeming to move. It was the kind of missed movement that convinced people that static objects changed positions when they looked away, the kind of movement that convinced those passing through spooky places that the trees or the tombstones were watching them. Perhaps even following them. It took Tiyane a couple of seconds to realise he was now staring intently at her. She looked back in puzzled confusion.
    "Does it seem...a little quiet to you?" he queried softly.
    Tiyane frowned, listening intently. Now that he mentioned it, she realised that the familiar, bawdy background noise of 'the others' enjoying their raucous entertainment downstairs was absent. They'd either toned it down - highly unlikely regardless of circumstance - or there had been a fight and they had all been subdued or killed, also unlikely because they would have firstly heard the fight and secondly it would have set alarms off.
  
  
Should have set alarms off.
  
  
    The door to the little room blew inwards in a shower of bright light, heat and many decent sized splinters. Tiyane leaped to her feet, whipping out her crossbow in the same motion. The blast whipped the loose strands of her long dark chocolate mane, a few stinging her face with the speed at which they flicked against it. She squinted into the explosion while loading a bolt into the crossbow.
    A dark, vaguely human shape appeared against the smoke and dust that had been kicked up from the explosion. It seemed to have glowing eyes.
    "ID!" demanded Tiyane, levelling her crossbow into the middle of the shape.
    The shadow flickered, moving rapidly towards them. Tiyane fired.
    The bolt buried itself into the wooden wall with a solid thwack. Tiyane reloaded as the shadow sprang nimbly towards her. White hot agony flared in both shoulders as the shadow connected, toppling her easily backwards onto the ground and landing on top off her. She didn't even realise she was screaming as she thrased madly beneath it, her hands burning with a numbing cold where they connected with the shadow as she thrashed uselessly against it. Its glowing eyes were terrifyingly hypnotic as seemingly in slow motion it drew a dark blade made of something that was so dark it looked like it was made of nothing.
  
  
She pulled the trigger.
  
  
    The shadow emitted a high-pitched, ear piercing screech as it was pushed upwards from the bolt flinging straight through its stomach as though it had passed through nothing. It seemed to go fuzzy, losing a little of its defined form. Tiyane scrambled back out from under it, breathing heavily. It took a while for her to register what the large, dark mass on the ground actually was. In that time her crossbow seemed to have reloaded itself. She loosened her hold slightly to avoid accidental firing, but kept her finger resting very lightly on the trigger. "Dauthi..." she started, looking towards the Guildmaster for some form of explanation. Then aimed at the next target that sauntered in through the door.
    She caught a flash of flowing red hair and piercing green eyes - _quite a common combination_ was the very odd and out of place thought that occurred to her - and the required spell tore through her mind without much conscious thought. Tiyane threw up her free hand. The fireball fizzled a good thirty centimetres before hitting her open palm, a few molten sparks tumbling clumsily off it. Some winked out before hitting the ground, larger ones scorched the wooden floorboards.
  
  
The next one got her.
  
  
    Tiyane couldn't even cry out for having the breath knocked out of her. She was aware of flying through space, the room a blur of colours around her, the agonising pain of shards of wood and glass ripping into her soft flesh slowing but not even coming close to stopping her. She was rather effectively proving the laws of gravity. A strange sense of calmness had set in, reducing the pain to a mere haze.
    The green eyed redhead was smirking down at her. Her rich, flaming hair swirled gracefully around her lithe, slender bronze-skinned body. She was wearing what was supposed to be armour, although Tiyane couldn't and never had seen the point of wearing chain mail bikinis with a random assortment of chains and sashes thrown in. Not even a big gleaming weapon could make that look like armour. Not for battle purposes anyway unless the wearer was hoping to stun attackers through force of sheer sex appeal.
  
  
Oh yeah, she was falling.
  
  
    Tiyane raised her free hand skywards. To anyone who didn't recognise the gesture, it looked like a desperate beseeching. In a way it almost was. Light flashed. Tiyane rotated casually backwards, getting her feet beneath her. A flash of cream and silver, sunlight off soft, clean feathers. The sound of air being shunted aside by thunderous wings.
    She landed safely on the back of the pegasus with a rib jarring thud that successfully knocked the wind out of her. Feeling almost numb from the pain, she entwined her hands in its tangled mane, fitting her legs in front of its wings. The pegasus snapped its wings out, slowing their descent. It tossed its head, glaring contemptuously upwards, black eyes glittering malevolently. Its shoulder muscles, feeling like steel bands against Tiyane's legs, bunched together as it pushed its wings down, propelling them skywards.
    The green eyed redhead looked satisfyingly shocked, stepping back quickly away from the edge to avoid the pegasus' wickedly sharp hooves. Lightning sparked, originating from her long, strong looking warrior fingers. Tiyane made a slight waving motion in front of and slightly above her face. The lightning curled threateningly around girl and pegasus for a second. The beast was unperturbed, tossing its mane impatiently. The lightning coiled back on itself, striking the redhead square in her bare, bronze stomach. Tiyane smirked as the proud, skimpy warrior was blasted back into the remains of the room.
    "Stupid assassins." Still, they'd somehow managed to bribe, convince or coerce a Dauthi assassin to do a run for them. She was still trying to figure out how she'd manage to get it off her with a simple crossbow bolt. The Dauthi mostly were and worked in shadows and were near impossible to see much less hit. She wasn't even sure if the one she'd hit was dead or not. It had gone down but that didn't mean a thing. Not with the Dauthi. On a mental request, the pegasus beat the air again with its wings, rising up above the burning building that had once been the Thieves Guild, banked gracefully on the thermal rising from it and headed towards the sun.
    Tiyane glanced back at the building that had once served as home base. They would regroup at one of the alternate posts, and build a new guild. Unless the shrubfolk had managed to escape (and she wouldn't put it far past him either - he was pretty nimble for an ancient geezer) they would be needing a new Guildmaster. Then of course they'd have to strike back at the Assassins Guild and do something equally nasty and horrible if not worse.
    And why had they been attacked anyway? True there had never been any love lost between the guilds, their fields of work tended to overlap more often than not. There had always been some underlying tension but it seemed more a given than any real reason that both guilds should be opposed to the presence of the other. Tiyane did not have a clue and didn't really care to know either.
    The pegasus was asking where she wanted to go.
    _Anywhere,_ she replied. Anywhere at all.


	3. Another Player

**III: Another Player**

The citadel was safe.

Patrolled by the best trained in Kjeldor, the skies watched by the eagle eyes of the Femeref archers, mages keeping an eye out for magic attacks in various towers, the citadel was virtually impenetrable. Certainly no one in recent history had ever breached it, not the irritating and chaotic goblins who had this strange insistence on trying to swarm the citadel to no avail, not the Cephalids through the aqueducts protected by allied merfolk, not the strangely far reaching Cabal whose grasp in this region was tenuous at best, not even the infernal Dauthi with their irritating ability to bypass all but the thickest walls.  
White light flashed on one of the wide, flat rooftops. A young woman dressed casually in a simple one piece white cotton dress with a gold cord about the waist faced off against a grizzled aven who looked like he'd seen his share of battles. A snarl escaped the jaws of the large, slightly transparent sphinx crouched in attack pose in front of the aven, glaring down the young woman.  
Wind whipped through the young woman's silken blonde hair, the sun kissing it gold. She raised a delicate, pale hand imperiously. A surge of power sang through her, and formed before her two unicorns, their pearl hides and alicorns gleaming brightly in the evening sun. Her hand described a neat arc as she brough it down from high above her head to a little out to her side, sparks of mana still dancing around her fingers. Even as she was doing that her other hand extended towards the sphinx, white magic rolling off her soft palm like water out of a fountain.  
The sphinx, poised to attack, froze in place.  
The aven smiled. Extending his wings slightly, he wove a pattern in the air with his hands. Phantasmic avens appeared, as corporeal as fog, around the hapless sphinx.  
The unicorns, on a mental command from their mistress, bolted forward with their heads down. Two of the four phantasmal avens stepped forward to meet the charge. There was a brief flash of ultraviolet light and both unicorns staggered backwards. One went down immediately without a sound, the other screamed in pain and fear before dropping to its knees. It hung its head, and both melted like mist before the sun.  
"Your control has improved," the aven said, folding his muscled arms across his broad chest. "Although you still have a way to go." His was more of a smirk than a smile. The young woman found him easy enough to read, having known him for most of her life. It was a well known fact - around these parts anyway - that it was almost impossible for an aven to smile without looking decidedly predatory. They were raptors after all.  
Princess Sianha brushed a few strands of flaxen gold that had escaped the tight braid she sported back behind her ear, casually wiping away a few droplets of sweat in the process. "It's a way I will have to go swiftly, then," she said, her voice commanding and regal, something she had quickly picked up from her father. "Did you see the sky last night?"  
"I saw it," Commander Moloc nodded, knowing exactly what she was talking about.  
"It's begun, hasn't it." It was more a statement, less a question.  
"It may be a freak occurrence," the aven smirked. "We shall have to wait for the next sign. Show yourself, Tiyane."  
The princess did a double take, Moloc had appended the sentence so casually she had almost missed it.

The girl stepped soundlessly into view from behind a pillar.

"You wanted?" Tiyane was young and very small considering what she was. Near-black skin was almost visible beneath a layer of very fine white fur with a striking pattern of slender chocolate stripes. Long hair of a darker shade was caught back in a simple plait that hung down to the small of her back. Her mostly human face sported large, unmistakable cat-like ears that faced forward by default but had the same freedom of movement. She was dressed for the occasion in loose, flowing white pants and a simple tunic top. Her odd feline eyes, coloured like an angry storm in ever changing hues of grey-blue, dark purple and black, missed very little. Behind her a slender tail thrashed in obvious annoyance.  
Princess Sianha drew herself up to her full height. "You will address the Commander in the proper manner," she said haughtily.  
Tiyane sullenly folded lightly muscled arms across a well toned stomach.  
Commander Moloc chuckled. "It's all right, Your Highness. Come here, Tiyane."  
Reluctantly, the girl left the shelter afforded by the mighty pillar and approached human and aven in a steady, casual lope. She paused in the aven's long shadow and raised her head slightly, looking more up with her eyes.  
"Did you see it?" Moloc inquired simply.  
"Yes," came the response.  
"What did you make of it?"  
"It was a bad moon on the wrong night. What you want me to make of it?"  
"Have you not ever listened to the old tales?" the princess snapped irritably. Her annoyance at having a stupid peasant - not just any stupid peasant but a bastard mongrel that had somehow managed to breach the tight security of the citadel - in her presence was painfully obvious.  
"I'm usually...busy...about the time the storytellers start," the younger girl said without so much as casting a glance at the irate princess. She seemed equally unhappy at being in the citadel in the presence of the princess, although it was more of a projected feeling than a blatant appearance.  
"Please, your Highness, calm yourself," Moloc said, his slightly raspy voice as gentle as he could make it. "Feel up to more work Tiyane?"  
Tiyane snorted disdainfully, shifting her weight more onto one foot. Her hitherto expressionless face set into a glare, her blue-grey eyes shifting subtley into a deep shade of purple-black. "Like I have a choice."  
Moloc smiled. This time there was a very definite, very deliberate cruel edge to it. Tiyane's lip curled slightly, the barest flash of teeth showing.  
"That's the spirit," Moloc's voice had a slight taunt in it. "I want you to find out who cast that bad moon and why."  
"You're becoming predictable, Moloc," Tiyane's voice was as soft and deadly as a spider's kiss. "It might get you killed."  
"Is that a threat Tiyane?" the aven returned. His sharp eyes picked out her extended claws.  
"More a statement although it could become one."  
"I'll keep that in mind. Report back when you have the information. Within a reasonable time of course."  
"Of course." Tiyane shook her head, then suddenly broke into a loping run, heading straight for the edge of the roof. She waved a hand without breaking stride, white light flared briefly and vanished, leaving in its wake a pale grey shadow of a pegasus, the only thing really clear about it a pair of lustrous, angry looking black eyes.  
Springing lightly, Tiyane easily cleared the short distance between the edge of the roof and the pegasus, landing on both feet on its shoulders. She dropped very rapidly into a crouch and from there into a riding position, her hands already twining into the foamy mist that served as the shadow pegasus' mane. The pegasus lashed its wings and rose vertically, quickly becoming lost to the sight of princess and aven as it flew into the sun.  
"For the life of me," Moloc smirked, "I have no idea how she does that."  
"Does what?" Sianha turned to him, a look of mild confusion colouring her pretty face. She glanced again in the general direction the commoner and the pegasus had last headed. "She summoned a pegasus and made a showy exit. A feat that could be performed by anyone with enough skill, Commander Moloc."  
Moloc chuckled, the edges of his beak clacking together. "You must have noticed, your Highness, that that was no ordinary pegasus." Casually he waved a hand in the air, murmuring under his breath. A shrill whinny cut the air beside him, and a very large, very well muscled male pegasus burst into existance in a white, near blinding flash. It bore built in head armour, ridiculously hard dermal plates on its head, with a couple of spikes protruding from brow and just above sensitive nose. It trilled again, softer this time. Its large hoofs struck sparks on the stone of the roof.  
Moloc gestured with his other hand, continuing to murmur softly. Another ebb of light arose, this one more gentle and rising slowly in power. It didn't reach nearly blinding proportions, choosing instead to remain merely bright. It cleared itself up relatively quickly, leaving in its stead a slightly smaller pegasus, more graceful and slender of form, and without the head armour.  
"These are the only two known breeds of pegasus in Dominaria," explained the aven, gesturing to his two summoned, "Although I have witnessed Tiyane calling upon them many a time, more often than not I have seen her summon strange pegasi like the one she rode away on."  
"She could be summoning them from another plane," Sianha shrugged. She then fixed the aven commander in her steely blue gaze. "Why do you deal with her anyway? She's a lowly commoner."  
"She's very good at getting things I can't acquire through any other channels," the aven commander replied with a mysterious smile.  
"Such as?" Sianha pressed.  
Moloc chuckled again. "You'll learn soon, your Highess, that some things are better left in the dark."


	4. Behind the Bad Moon

Tiyane's bad mood manifested itself into a snort as she bounded easily from roof to roof, barely noticing the long drops as they stretched beneath her. _I am going to kill him._ It was a simple statement of fact for her, not a possibility but a high probability. His position and everything else did not factor in. Not for the time being.  
Hunting down someone responsible for a bad moon indeed. Who really cared anyway. She knew of several workers of black magic who could throw up a bad moon. Granted they could only do it on the night of the full moon. Theoretically then finding someone capable of throwing a bad moon on a night when the moon wasn't full shouldn't be all too difficult.  
So why stupid Moloc was making her do it as opposed to extending the long arm of the law was completely beyond her.

_Stupid avens. Think they're so great coz they got wings._

She didn't bother breaking stride as she approached a long jump. Sizing up quickly, she picked up speed and threw herself whole-heartedly into the challenge. The gap was a decnt one, spanning a well-travelled road leading to the city centre. Her limbs flailed in a controlled fashion to add to her momentum (well, no one was actually sure if that helped or not but it seemed to work and was good for the psyche of the person performing the leap), her long tail streaming out like a banner behind her.  
She exhaled sharply but still felt stabbing pain as the edge of the roof slammed into her solar plexus. She extended her claws, scratching into the moss growing on the roof as gravity grabbed her and dragged her roughly downwards. Her legs kicked the air, trying to find some form of purchase that might aid her ascent and coming up with nothing.  
It took a bit of doing but she managed to get herself under control enough to think about things for a little while, and then concentrate on pulling herself back up using arm strength. It took a bit of doing because arm strength wasn't exactly her strong suite. She paused, crouched on the edge of the roof, her tail wrapped around her, panting lightly from the exertion. Brushing a lock of chocolate mane out of her face, she peered around to get her bearings, not that she needed to really.

The Academy towered before her, dark and foreboding, lights from its windows winking like multitudinous eyes. The entire building was pulsating with the strength of magic performed within. Tiyane cocked her head to one side, gazing thoughtfully at it.  
She could almost imagine the building glaring back with a _what are you looking at_ type glare. She wasn't even sure who - or what - she was looking for. With a sigh she decided she would figure that out when she found whatever it was she was looking for. Though how something like that would work defied all possible logic.

Which worked fine for someone who didn't work much with logic anyway.

Tiyane headed for the building.

*******

Q'it yawned sleepily. It was late. He was running on something like two hours sleep over the past three days. The mystery of the bad moon on the wrong night was looking no closer to being solved. Not that he'd expected to find the answer that soon but it would have been nice. It was only academic interest anyway. Something like that would be extremely useful to know.

If he ever managed to manifest the power to be able to cast it.

Q'it paused and looked up, allowing his eyes reprieve from the oceans of text he had been tirelessly wading through ever since That Night. He stared directly into the flickering light of the candle balanced on the skull on the desk. His eyes stung a little, but other than that made no compaint.

_No one alive can cast a bad moon on the wrong night._

"No one alive..." he mused thoughtfully. Zombies did not have brains to have the brainpower for something like that. Vampires had no need. Not really. Not the ones that mattered anyway and they kept extremely tight rein on their underlings.

_What then?_

His mind wandered back to the half-remembered dream, when he'd fallen asleep - _did I fall asleep?_ - at the table, over his reading. A cat warrior. They were extremely rare around human populations, most had been wiped out as people spread throughout Dominaria. There were still a few here and there in the wilder areas, but most of the tribes had been annihilated or assimilated.

It was quite sad really.

They were a people in their own right and had as much right to their own lifestyle and culture as anyone else. Unfortunately humans with their snobby, superior ways did not think the same.  
Q'it exhaled gently. The idle thought that he should probably practice his magic at some stage occurred to him. He glanced again at his books. It would be a good break. He straightened up, listening as his spine clicked back into place.  
Break would be good. Though he wasn't going to pass off the strange, niggling sensation that he should figure out the bad moon thing as quickly as possible as advanced paranoia or just his curiousity running itself into overdrive again.  
He couldn't really concentrate anymore though. He pushed back from the desk and straightened. Blood rushed into his legs, burning in a pleasant way. He smirked and stretched, then wandered over to the window. Leaning casually on it, he gazed out into the night.  
It was a pleasant night, warm and balmy, with a gentle breeze that was neither too warm nor too cool, but the perfect temperature, wafting through bearing the sweet scent of lavender and something else.

It was a nice night for some fresh air.

*******

_ Lightning seared the sky, forking in several directions. The beautiful redhead from whence the lightning was originating stood in classic sorceress pose, straight-backed, sexy in her platemail bikini, one arm raised. Around that raised hand power accumulated and spread.  
J'raal ducked as lightning flew over his head. The cat leaped into his line of sight, flipping neatly in the air before landing on all fours in a ready crouch, fangs bared in a silent snarl, staring down the redhead.  
A fireball of fairly decent proportions shot towards the cat. She sprang lightly up, hands that were more large paws than anything else curling into fists in a shape-up type guard. A flicker of blue glazed briefly over her storm-coloured eyes, and the fireball fizzled into nothingness before it even came close to reaching her.  
J'raal dropped back a little from the fray and encountered the boy. The platinum-haired youth glanced up at him, then turned back to the battle, wearing a disconcerted look. Lightning flashed. The boy waved a hand, and that spell fizzled before it could fry them. On the boy's other side, the princess snuggled up against the boy. J'raal idly wondered if she was aware of the boy's...darker side.  
Good thing the elf's not here, J'raal thought idly, not having any clue why he had that thought and knowing better than to question.  
The cat performed a neat half-twist through the air, landing just in time to get blasted by a rain of miniature meteors, less than an eighth of them making contact.  
"We should do something," the boy said to him, his voice quiet and semi-urgent.  
"Let them sort it out," J'raal responded gruffly. He thoughtfully fingered the stone on the end of his staff, smiling as he watched the girls fighting it out._

J'raal opened his eyes. In his mind he saw the cat girl still sliding backwards, bourne on the momentum of about fifteen minute fireballs, skidding to a halt and slowly sitting up, her creamy fur charred and blackened in several places.  
The image faded from his memory before he could identify the place.

He was sure he knew the place.

J'raal made his way out onto the balcony, leaning nonchalantly against the warm, black stone. He gazed at nothing in particular, feeling the soft fingers of the breeze caress his cold skin, smoothing out his long, black hair.  
He must have liked the feeling once. He raised his face to the breeze, inhaling deeply. He registered lavender and something else. It must have been pleasant once. He leaned back down on his arms again, staring at nothing in particular before his eyes were drawn to the silhouette of the Academy, towering above the walls of the distant city.  
The place echoed with the residue of magic, strains of white, blue, red and green. While study of black magic was encouraged, its practice was generally frowned upon. J'raal smirked quietly, remembering days spent with fellow students secretly practising the black arts, the cults that spawned, the ones that thought they were better than they were.

Bad things happened to those that didn't respect the power of black magic.


End file.
